Last school year, Carson High School students skipped 1,926 days of class. This year, the school reduced that figure by 20%, thanks to an aggressive intervention program that included tracking down students and meeting with parents. Much of the credit goes to Sally Stevens, one of two school attendance counselors who are responsible for finding chronic truants. "They're the ones who deal with the hard-core students, and they find a way to get them to school," said Ken Keener, Carson's principal.

The Web never stops and it never forgets. On a recent Friday night, a UCLA student posted a video on YouTube. The young woman made the video, in which she complained about and mocked Asian students at UCLA, the day after the Japan earthquake. She took down the clip within hours of posting it. She was too late. By then it was being reposted and remixed, taking on a life of its own. By that Sunday, it had come full circle. UCLA officials watching the situation unfold noticed considerable surges in traffic on the university's Facebook and YouTube profiles, said Phil Hampton, a UCLA spokesman.

Administrators of the flagship downtown Los Angeles arts high school neglected to mention one crucial fact in their application materials: that enrollment is first-come, first-served for students outside the neighborhood. It was the latest snafu in the short, troubled history of the $232-million campus. That admissions information isn't explained on the school's website or on its application form. Instead, instructions note that families from other areas can apply between Feb. 7 and March 4. Principal Luis Lopez characterized the incomplete information as an oversight.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger threw his weight behind state legislation on Tuesday that proposes to give school administrators the ability to assign or fire teachers based on their effectiveness and to streamline the dismissal process. Schwarzenegger made similar suggestions during a speech in January, and state Sen. Bob Huff, (R-Diamond Bar) wrote the bill, which is to be heard in the Legislature on Wednesday. At a press conference Tuesday at Markham Middle School in Watts, Schwarzenegger cited Times stories about the difficulties in evaluating teachers and said California's schools need to operate more like private companies that can make personnel decisions based on merit rather than seniority.

Green Dot Public Schools, a leading charter school operator, is shutting down a campus because of low enrollment, financial pressures and subpar performance, officials confirmed Monday. The action prompted a daylong student protest Monday at Animo Justice Charter High School, south of downtown Los Angeles. The closure marks a first for locally based and nationally recognized Green Dot, which has 19 area campuses and one in New York City. The nonprofit Green Dot opened five independently run, publicly funded charters, including Animo Justice, four years ago, near long-struggling Jefferson High School in South Los Angeles.

"I'm excited . . . It's good to have someone who has been here and knows about Trojan football. His dad is coming with him and I feel like on both sides of the ball we'll be pretty solid, Coach Orgeron too. I think it's huge to get that guy and get that leadership." -- Matt Barkley , quarterback "Lane Kiffin is the right guy, basically a clone of Coach Carroll with the energy and the swagger, so everyone is excited. . . . I can't wait for the first meeting, because we'll be back in there hollering and dancing just like we did when Coach Carroll was here, so it's going to be fun."

Kaiser Permanente, the state's largest nonprofit HMO, has been ordered to pay a former Valencia middle school administrator $5 million after its physicians misinterpreted signs of an impending stroke that left him partially paralyzed and disabled for life. An infection related to his subsequent treatment led to the amputation of both his legs. A panel of three arbitrators ruled Nov. 18 in favor of Timothy Howard, who said Kaiser physicians were negligent for failing to properly diagnose the cause of his episodic blindness, headaches and other complaints.

The dairy industry recently rolled out an expensive media campaign in praise of chocolate milk, a classic school lunch drink that's under assault for its sugar content. As trade groups spend upward of $1 million to defend the drink, three fifth-graders have come to its rescue. A year after the school district in Barrington, Ill., banned flavored milk from its elementary- and middle-school lunch menus, students persuaded administrators to give it another chance. "Kids weren't drinking the white milk," said Haley Morris, 10. "It's better to have the chocolate milk than nothing."

It was the middle of the night. I was asleep. My mom came in and started punching me. She said I didn't fold my clothes right. I threw her off of me. She was real drunk. She started on me again. The police came. She said: 'What? I'm just kicking my son's ass.' Just another night. -- Carlos, 17 :: The little school in South Los Angeles is the end of the road, reserved for those who have bombed out of the rest of the system. The mildest cases were merely kicked out of their last school.